Satyagraha

[Guest post by Greg]

While Judy and I do not catch the Met simulcast opera performances as often as SP, we were looking forward to seeing the Met's recent revival of their acclaimed 2008 production of Philip Glass' Satyagraha—whose subject is the larger-than-life figure of M.K. Ghandi.

The music of that opera—from the CBS recording—is a longstanding favorite of mine. It is beautiful and has an unusual emotional intensity that stands out independently of the language and any narrative associations. So I was really looking forward to seeing the production. I confess I enjoy a good deal of Philip Glass' music, so I was totally ready.

Judy was looking forward to it with some trepidation—thinking about what four hours of solid Glass might do to a person. She brought earplugs just in case we started going mad. (In truth, Judy and I have been to numerous live performances of Glass music over the years, and she always has enjoyed them and been impressed in spite of herself.)

And so to the Met's Satyagraha performance: Earplugs not needed! We both loved the show and were deeply impressed with the opera. Judy said afterward that Philip Glass had finally truly won her over, and when he took his bow at the end, she had felt true respect for what he had accomplished.

Here is a rather passionate review of the the production (originally mounted in 2008). Well worth reading and it will give you some idea of what the opera is all about—in lieu of going:

  NYRB review of the show

It explains a lot about the idea of the opera and how it works—useful given its non-traditional nature. It is also a super-glowing review—which is rather lovely, because, in the end, I think what the reviewer most wanted to do was communicate enough of the ideas and the experience so that when he tells you he burst into tears at the end, you will understand him. Personally, I cried three and a half times, but maybe I don't count because I cry for everything—I cried twice when we went to see the Broadway musical, Wicked. But it wasn't just me this time. I am authorized to tell you that Judy also cried during the performance and teared up again later over dinner just talking about a certain moment of the piece. So that should tell you something. The opera operates on an emotional level with no traditional plot line—it picks up just enough pieces of narrative structure to touch on and build off of certain emotions. (Probably this makes it a sort of love it or hate it opera. We loved it.) It all makes some kind of brave wonderful sense, because Ghandi is such a big subject—to drop him into an opera plot would somehow smallerize him. Instead, by staying at some level of abstraction above simple storytelling, the opera manages to be a moving meditation on Ghandi's achievement and its lasting importance.

There were also some very imaginative and clever moments of stage design. Moody and compelling and exultant. Creative use of humble materials: newspaper, sticks, baskets, packing tape and set pieces that look like corregated iron. Some unusual larger-than-life puppets get into the act at various points in the show to mysterious effect.

The opera is sung in Sanskrit—which really seems the ideal language for Glass music. This means that no one hearing the opera understands what is being sung, but you know everything you need to know by the way the singers sing and their expressions and by knowing the setting. And in fact what they are singing is not directly related to the scenes they are enacting anyway—but are instead meditations from the Bhagavad Ghita. It is a genius, universalizing move for this opera and a nice challenge for the vocalists.

This is an enduring opera and likely to be the centerpiece of Glass' musical legacy—I would stake my operatic reputation on it. Far be it from me to recommend that you catch the encore broadcast (December 7th, 6:30pm), but you might want to check it out. You are well advised to read the scene synopses carefully, because you cannot reliably infer the biographical setting of the scenes from what you will see on stage.

"A masterpiece of musical and visual art." —New York Post

"Spectacular . . . [the music] frequently ravishing" —Associate Press

"A masterwork of theatrical intensity and integrity . . . Image after image is etched indelibly on the memory, in its masterly fusion of the aural and the visual." —The Times of London

"A thing of wonder . . . the whole thing serves as a monumental affirmation of human dignity at a time when many have begun to question its very existence-and for that, we must be infinitely grateful." —The Guardian

"Glass's theme is Gandhi and here -- arguably more than in any of his other stage works -- his style finds a soul-mate in the opera's central character. . . The result is an atmospheric, visually imaginative show." —The Financial Times

  NY Times review (includes some visual-spoiler images and video).

The negative bits: There are two downsides both of which have to do with the broadcast of the opera, not the stage performance: 1) the between-acts host was not doing a great job (I don't know why the Met thinks it makes sense to give this job to opera singers -- because MCs and singers both vocalize? Really?) and 2) the Met camerawork was (again!) too busy and spends entirely too much time pulled in too close for a stage production—it is a problem not unique to this simulcast, but shows up more in this show because most of the action on stage is in the service of building an overall impression or making a scenic tableaux. It seemed clear that no one thought to tell the camera people that this is not a business-as-usual opera and to frame some idea for them about how they should approach it. (But see UPDATE below.)

UPDATE: J and I went to the encore performance and are convinced the footage had been edited in various places. This notably improved the camera work problem I noted above -- alternate camera feeds replacing the badly chosen ones during the live broadcast.